


Asche zu Asche

by grilledhaifisch



Category: Rammstein
Genre: Christianity, Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Monks, Or Is It?, Rosenrot AU, f in the chat for our lads, i cant believe im writing bandfic now, inspired by the video and the lyrics to asche zu asche, thats just how it be sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 02:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19432417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grilledhaifisch/pseuds/grilledhaifisch
Summary: Paul grips his bible just a bit tighter. He's always been fond of fire, the warmth and comfort it brings on a cold, unforgiving night, but now...He shudders despite the fire blazing away in front of him.He dares not show it.Richard knows the Lord must be testing him. He has awoken with the taste of ash in the back of his throat the last three days, and the shadows of the night have seemed longer and darker despite the arrival of summer.He spends another night sleepless.The cigarette in his mouth blazes away.Oliver hasn't taken his hood off in days now. There have been shapes at the edges of his vision, things that he dares not name for fear of giving them power.There's a flicker of a claw right where he cannot see it.He averts his gaze.Christoph grips his rosary, and the pressure grounds him for just a moment. The rest have all been distant lately. He doesn't want to think about what happened to Paul.He can't help but think about it.He winds the rosary tighter.Christian feels the fire before he sees it. The ash in his mouth chokes him, and the heat is unbearable.He feels crumbling hands grab him, pulling him down.He prays.





	Asche zu Asche

It's only been a day or two since they left the village where it happened behind them, but it seems like weeks. Paul finally gets ahold of the rock and heaves himself upwards, scrambling to catch up with the rest of their small group. He's always the one who gets left behind - he's loathe to admit it, but his height really does make the trawl from village to village just a bit tougher. It's tiring, having to keep up with the likes of Oliver and Christian. He falls in line with the rest of the group, trying to downplay just how out of breath he really is while he sees Richard barely suppress a chuckle. Paul glares at him and he holds his hands up in a show of peace, but he's still smiling. Paul huffs, then walks on by Oliver's side. If he keeps the same pace there's no way he'll fall behind again. Unless if they have to go up another damned hill. 

Paul hates Eastern Europe, he's decided. Too many hills. The day has been almost pure walking uphill, and the sweet comfort of the bed, although hard and cold, is a welcome respite for his tired legs. His boots are new and he's got blisters in places he didn't even know you could _have_ blisters. He near tosses himself onto the mattress, boots still laced on, and stays there for about ten minutes before getting interrupted by what sounds like Christoph by the pure haughtiness of the footsteps. He sighs, then mumbles a quick prayer as he sits up and pulls off his boots and puts them neatly by the foot of the bed. He hates having to share a room with Christoph - he's uptight and way too serious - but there's not a lot of space to spare in many of the villages they go through. Often they'll have to rely on the generosity of anyone whose children have moved to any of the bigger cities and have a bed or two to spare. Here Christian had been the lucky one - there had been an old room in the town hall, mostly unused but well-maintained in case anyone important should come through the small huddling of houses that was only playing at being a town at most. 

He groans as he hears Christoph enter the room, heels clacking sharply on the wood floor, each step even and calculated. There's a small pause, then he walks over to the other bed in the small room, where he puts his case down, and Paul hears the muffled sound of him kneeling on the floor. He turns his head and can just make out Christoph's back, elbows resting on the bed, and oh Lord he's going to start one of his damned one-man sermons again isn't he. Paul wrenches his eyes shut and just about manages to grab a pillow to cover his ears before Christoph starts his shitty passive aggressive jabs at his travelling fellows thinly disguised as prayer. Paul can almost block out the entire thing by now, although he falters at some parts - there're pauses in between the otherwise steady stream of what amounts to childish insults where it seems that he's just about to start on a tirade, but stops himself, seemingly remembering something and inhaling sharply. 

They spend the rest of the evening in silence. Paul lights a candle at some point in order to keep at his reading, but the light distracts him. The fire dances and sputters and licks at the wick, and his gaze can't help but wander away from the well-read pages and up towards the small flame. He shivers despite the summer heat, and it's not long before he blows it out. He tries to sleep instead. The fire still burns away on the back of his eyelids.

The next day he spends with Oliver. There's something wrong, though, and their usual discussions don't seem to come as easily as usual. There's something missing, Paul thinks. He knows the shape of it in the back of his mind, but he doesn't want to pull at that string.

⁂

It's been a week since they arrived in the village, and there's tensions brewing. Paul has noticed the dark circles under Richard's eyes deepening, and he's burning through his cigarettes faster, although it doesn't seem like he's gaining anything from it - he coughs and hacks whenever he lights one up, and Paul's sure he's seen him light one up and then immediately have to go off somewhere private, presumably in order to vomit. Oliver's been acting strange too. He keeps his vision lowered, as if cautious to look up at whatever his eyes might meet. And Paul's not doing too great himself, either - the candle Christoph insists on lighting every night makes him feel... uneasy. Like he's the one burning. 

He scratches absentmindedly at his hand, still staring at the light. 

He can't seem to look away. 

His eyes are dry. 

He desperately wants to blink. 

The fire burns on. Christoph hasn't said anything in a while now - most likely reading. Paul feels his hand burning. Doesn't really care. Stares on into the flame. Lick, lick, licking away at the wax. A drop runs down the length of the candle. There's a brief flicker from the light down the candle, then back to the wick. Nail inches across skin, falling into an uneasy rhythm. Can't seem to tear his eyes from the white-hot light branding itself onto his retinas. Tries to. Not really, though. 

His nail catches on something, and he looks down for just a fraction of a second - and then the spell is broken, because he's clawed down through his skin and there's blood coating his hand and fingers now, and he finally feels the pain through the layers of Fata Morgana in his mind. He hisses sharply, stands up suddenly and Cristoph looks up at his hurried movements. He grabs the bandages from his case, then orders Paul to sit down and sit _still_ as he does his best to clean the wound. He wraps the bandage around Paul's hand a tad too tightly. They sit for a moment. Then Christoph stands up, and, as if nothing had happened, goes back to his reading. Paul just sits, looking at his hands, still in his lap.

After a while - whether it's ten minutes or twenty, he can't say - he vaguely sees Christoph blow out the light, leaving them in darkness. 

He wakes that night, and the fire is burning behind his eyes - he screams, cannot _stop_ screaming - there’s shadows in front of him, someone moving, someone’s yelling at him but the fire fills his veins and he burns, embers on his tongue and smoke in his throat, pouring out and out and _out_. 

When he comes to, after the fire has raged through him for forever and only an instant, he’s bound, hands in front and legs folded up neatly under him. He’s sitting in the middle of the town hall, the tables and seats having been hastily cleared from the middle to make room for the current arrangement. Christian is right in front of him, and he can vaguely hear his monotone voice drone out verses that he’s never heard before and he can’t make out the words properly and the rope is tight against his wrists and he’s got the worst God damned headache _ever_ and he can hear the others droning along with him and he can’t move - he’s so tired he’s exhausted he’s burnt out - He collapses, face planting itself firmly on the hard floor, the pain shooting down his skull down into the rest of his body. 

The noise makes one of them stop, kneeling down and grabbing him, gently helping him sit up - it’s Richard, Paul realizes blearily through the pain, and he’s still wearing the stupid fucking hat and Paul can’t seem to suppress the laugh spilling out between his lips, voice hoarse and small. He’s looking him in the eyes now, concern furrowing his brow, but Paul still can’t get over the fact that he’s wearing the hat, the dumbest hat he’s ever seen and Paul can feel the dizziness creep down on him, weighing him down as he’s coughing out laughs in between horrid attempts at breathing.

They’re all looking down at him now, and he knows he must look mad or dying or possibly both as Richard tries to hold him steady, trying to calm him down. He doesn’t care, the fire he’s had burning in him has finally gone out and he feels the world has been turned upside down - although now that he thinks about it, that might be because his _head_ is hanging upside down. He bursts into another fit of giggles, and he feels Richard suddenly dropping him, causing him to fall onto the floor again. He keeps laughing. Can’t seem to stop. The others seem to be discussing something, voices frantic, but Paul just laughs. He sees Christoph shake his head somberly. It looks funny. Paul can hardly breathe. Christoph gestures at a vial, and Olli grabs it frantically and pours it over Paul. Olli. Where did that come from? He’s never been one for nicknaming people. He laughs again. Christoph seems agitated now. He says something, then strides over to Paul, looming over him. 

He barely sees the boot before it hits him square in the ribs.

He coughs, all the air leaving his body in an instant, and Christoph doesn’t seem to notice. He just keeps kicking him in the same spot, over and over and over until he hears a sickening _crack_ and then he pauses, out of breath and gasping heavily. Paul whimpers, each breath ragged and burning and he’s burning again now, fire spreading through his chest and he can barely register the moment when Christoph starts again, foot pounding into him while he yells and yells and someone else is yelling too now and there’s blood building up in the back of his throat - he sees Richard holding Christoph back and he’s still wearing the hat - Paul laughs, throat bubbling up with vile, iron-crusted smoke, hands and feet bound and he passes out with a rictus grin on his face.

⁂

Richard’s hands are shaking near-constantly now. He notices this distantly, like looking through fog. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do about it. Shaking fingers grab another cigarette, and he curses when he sees there’s only a couple left. He thought he’d brought enough to last until the next city. He lights it up anyway. Savors it as much he can even though the smell almost makes him sick. He’s glad to be free from the small room where Paul has been lying for the last day, breathing shallow and horrible. The smell is starting to become unbearable. He grimaces in sympathy for Oliver, who volunteered, somewhat hesitant, to take his place by Paul’s side. The air in the small room must be heavy with miasma from the festering wounds by now. 

He takes another drag from the cigarette, then scowls when he realizes he’s let it gone to waste - there’s barely anything left. He puts it out on the sole of his boot, then lights another one. The sun shines down on him, harsh and unforgiving. The weather had been bad last night, and the ground is still muddy. The warmth is making quick work of it, though, and it’s beginning to bake the soil into a sort of clay. Last night had been hectic by all standards, rain pounding on the windows and wind howling. There had been a lot of panicking. The reason _why_ is something foul lurking in the back of his mind, something he wants to avoid at all costs.

He wonders if this is it. 

He dismisses the thought, but the sight of Paul’s grinning face still flashes through his mind, as though taunting him. He hates to admit it, hates to think it at all, but… he had been glad when Christoph shut him up. He knows he’s not supposed to feel this way - Paul is his fellow man, a fellow monk, a fellow _christian_ \- but there had been something raw, something viscerally satisfying in seeing him on the ground, seeing him broken down. Richard shudders, tries to clear his mind. He’s not a violent man. At least, not usually. He’s just been on edge lately, that’s all. He just needs something to distract himself. Something to take his mind off of his lack of sleep. And he swears, because his second cigarette this morning has just burnt his lips. He stands up, mind clouded with thoughts he’s not sure he can stand for much longer. He considers going into the forest for a bit. Experience nature. Be alone. Get as far away from the rest as possible, and a small part of him whispers, _and if you never come back, they won’t mind, will they?_

He stands up, intent on walking off, but his feet stay firmly planted where they are. He can’t just leave them, can he? He looks towards the forest. Only a few minutes’ walk and he’d be out of reach to anyone looking for him.

The breeze is picking up now. 

He’s itching for another smoke. He shakes one out, tries to light it under his cupped hand, but the wind is too strong and blows out the match before he gets the chance. He drops the cigarette in the process, which falls to the muddy ground, ruined. He looks around for shelter, relieved when he sees a small shed right by one of the houses. He goes in, grabs another cigarette, then hurries inside. 

The shed is filled with various bottles and knick-knacks, and Richard’s surprised to see a cross hanging on the wall opposite one laden with shelves overflowing with stuff, sacks filled with wheat on either side. He stops in his tracks for a moment, then closes the door quietly. He fumbles with his cigarette for a moment, then finally lights it. He stands still, just enjoying the first drag. Then he opens his eyes, looks at the cross. Something makes him close the hatch on the door to the shed, effectively locking him inside. He needs some privacy, he thinks. Some time alone. He turns towards the cross and kneels. He clenches his palms in prayer, his nails leaving pale half-moons on the back of his hands. The cigarette hangs precariously from his mouth, ash falling into his robes.

He stays, praying in silence, until the cigarette burns out. The ashes are all in his lap, and he brushes them off as he stands up, already fishing for another cigarette. It’s the last one. He considers saving it, but his hands are already on the way to lighting it, embers playing lightly on the end of it. He tosses the match carelessly, going to inspect the bottles stacked on the shelf. They’re all filled with a clear liquid, one that he’s somehow sure isn’t water. He vaguely considers breaking one open and downing it. At least that would make him think about something else. But he doesn’t, resists. The shadows in the room seem just a touch darker for some reason. He thinks about Paul, his face blank after the blows to his chest. He wishes he could stop thinking about it. The bottles seem ever more tempting. But it’s as if he can feel the cross behind him stare, shame burning his neck and creeping down his back. The cigarette feels ever heavier. 

He doesn’t smell it before it’s too late, the smoke from the cigarette masking the smoke from the now-growing fire in the sacks of wheat. He turns towards it, but something pins him to the ground, eyes stuck on the fire growing ever larger, gorging itself on the dry harvest. He falls to his knees. No, it isn’t falling. His legs fold up mechanically, ending with him on his knees in a mockery of how he was positioned before. The smoke is filling the shed now, and his eyes flicker towards the cross, hazy through the warmth.

An ember from the fire catches in his veil.

He can’t move. 

Does he want to?

He doesn’t know. 

Smoke fills his lungs, and he doesn’t try to cough, letting it into him until he can feel it in his fingertips. There’s fire crawling up his robes now, burning and hot and still so distant. There’s what amounts to an explosion as the fire has finally worked its way up to the bottles of alcohol, and there’s a commotion outside now. He can hear yelling. Pounding at the door. 

Something breaks through just as he can feel the last air in his lungs escape. 

⁂

Oliver hasn’t moved from the spot where he’s been pinned since he saw the fire. The night sky above him is bright with stars, just as the shed had lit up the evening for hours until someone had organized a bucket line from the well to the now-smoldering heap of ash. The sight of the figure he had seen in the burning building when he looked over Christoph’s shoulder still won’t leave him. The smell had been horrible, like a burnt piece of pig flesh. He almost gags. Apparently he had already died before the fire had consumed him. Christian had told him after they’d taken the body out of the ashes. He had come out to ask if he wasn’t coming to at least get something to eat. Oliver hadn’t answered. He’d just stayed on the spot, eyes glazed over, the fire and the stench still heavy in his mind. 

He’s looking up at the sky now, the moon shining down on him, bathing him in light. He feels the cold breeze even through the heavy robes. The all-too-heavy robes that he’s been wearing for days now. There’s a flicker of a shadow in the corner of his eye. His hood blocks the view of whatever it might be. He doesn’t turn his head. He fears what he might see. What he might _not_ see. 

He shudders.

The cold is stroking his fingers gently. Caressing his hands, his face, crawls underneath the heavy, heavy robes into his bones and nests there. He turns, wind leading the way, and looks towards the forest. 

His limbs feel so heavy. 

He doesn’t want to move. 

But he has to, cold pushing him and prodding his legs onward. Each step feels like the last. The one where he’ll stop, shake himself out of it, go inside, get some food, get some rest. It’ll all be better in the morning. He’ll sit contently by the fire. Feel the warmth back in his bones. See the embers glow away, burning white and red and orange and black playing and laughing silently. Smell the smoke of a fireplace opened too early. Taste the ash in the back of his throat and feel the fire on his back branding him, the warmth turning him into charcoal and his fingers crumble away and his bones will be the only thing left of him and he’ll scream, smoke billowing out of his mouth, eyes boiling and bursting and the fat bubbling under his skin and no one will be able to put it out, it’ll be too late and - 

He’s already at the edge of the forest now. He doesn’t know how he got here. He’s out of breath, too - he’s been running, he realizes. Running all this way. His legs feel heavy again. He’s almost on the ground, knees buckling under him and he sluggishly grabs a branch, stumbles to lean against the tree a few meters away. He feels like his lungs are burning. They aren’t, he knows this, it’s because he’s not used to running. It’s just because he’s not used to running. His lungs burn anyway. He rights himself, hand gripping the rough bark. He pulls down his hood, heart pounding in his ears. He pulls it up and off his head after a moment. The cold welcomes him, brings him down, stills his heart for a second. It embraces his face, peppers his too-warm face with kisses of frost and ice-blue pins. 

He walks. 

The forest is dark, shadows too long and dark even in the night. Each step sounds ever louder through the silence that only unwelcome visitors bring. He knows where he’s going, though, the many treks throughout the last week into the forest having prepared him. 

And he stops, because he knows now. This is what this whole ordeal has been leading to. He laughs, or at least he thinks he laughs. The sound escaping him doesn’t sound like any laugh he’s ever heard. He doesn’t care. He’s found what the Lord has been leading him to this whole time. He feels lighter now, and he’s soon walking briskly in the night, forest quiet around him.

He stops again, suddenly embarrassingly aware of the boots on his feet. Surely he shouldn’t be wearing shoes. It feels wrong. He’s in someone’s home, after all. His home. The Lord’s home. He crouches, pulls them off with some difficulty, and puts them on the side of the road. The cold ground under him feels like Him. The ground is still slippery - the warmth of the sun hasn’t reached here, and last night’s weather has made the soil into mud, hiding the stones and pebbles. He walks on, soles on his feet eventually numbing to the cold and occasional edge scraping into them.

His feet feel heavy after a while, caked in mud and burdened with something he doesn’t want to call guilt, and yet he cannot stop. He has stood still for far too long. Now at last he’s walking, moving towards something, the goal clear in his mind. 

The cliff right above the lake.

By the time he arrives his soles are bleeding. He doesn’t mind it. It’s refreshing. He’s feeling too warm, anyway. Let him bleed, then at least he’ll feel less like he’s burning up. He laughs again. He climbs the last part of the way and looks down. He’s on on his hands and knees, looking down over the small cliff into the lake, unmoving in the moonlight. He feels the fire in his lungs again, and he’s wheezing heavily. He feels so heavy. So warm. The fire won’t stop. He grabs the hems of his robes, tries to undo the belt, but his fingers are numb and he can’t get the knot loose. He grabs it roughly between his teeth, but the fabric is too tough to tear through. He works at it, saliva bleeding into the knot, and at last he gets it loose. He slips it off gracefully, as though he hadn’t just been tearing into it like a wild animal, then folds it up and puts it beside him. He sits, naked torso shivering in the night chill.

He still feels so warm, even as the wind snips and bites at him. He’s breathing heavily, but the cold air just feeds the fire.

The lake underneath him calls to him.

He stands up, legs shaking. The fall is somewhere between accidental and meticulously planned, and he cannot for the life of him say it is one or the other.

The impact with the surface of the water feels like nothing. He just goes from falling to sinking. He breathes in, lungs still full of fire, and the water fills them. It still doesn’t put it out. He inhales more, more, yet more, and the water in his lungs only makes the fire burn worse. 

He sinks into the lake, trying desperately to put out a fire that never started.

⁂

Christoph wakes early. It’s still dark out, but he has a _very_ accurate internal clock. He doesn’t need to look at the clock on the wall to know it’s about 4 in the morning. He sits up almost immediately after opening his eyes. He gets out of the bed, unfolds his clothes, slipping into the dress mechanically. Like clockwork. The faint ticking from the clock on the wall has long settled in his mind, like a cog inserted right where it should. He looks at it, painstakingly carved and painted with some of the finest craftsmanship he has ever seen, wondering at the hard work that must’ve been put into it, the many hours of labor. He smiles faintly, feeling his own inner mechanisms ticking away, although in his case it’s the heart the Lord gave him. He’s a sort of organic machine, he thinks vaguely. The thought of Him designing Man, putting each and every piece in its proper place, gives him peace. He fiddles absentmindedly with his rosary, the cross playing lightly across his fingertips. 

He shakes himself out of it, letting go of the cross and going out into the cold morning. Even though it’s summer, the night has been cold and biting, and he can still feel the remnants of the chill in the air. He puts on his gloves, thin fingers slipping into the fabric like it’s a second skin. He walks, each step calculated yet at the same time coming to him naturally, like the complicated and instinctual building of a hive. The bees will soon be awakening from their slumber, the sun warming their bodies and calling them to work.

He thinks about bees. How magnificently designed creatures they are, their anatomy made _just so_ that they can fly, even as their wings might seem too delicate to lift them.

He thinks about wasps. How they, too, are hard workers. How they, too, make hives as intricate as any maze. 

He scratches absentmindedly at his wrist. 

He thinks about how wasps kill bees. Their ceaseless stinging. A single wasp can easily kill a single bee.

Christoph stumbles, his foot giving way beneath him. He realizes he’s been running. 

He thinks about how bees kill wasps. Bees have strength in numbers. An established hive has no problems defending itself.

He can feel a poison seeping through his mind, leaving white-hot trails of memories he wishes would disappear. The sickly-sweet stench of flowers cloys at his nose, and he almost gags. He’s in the forest, he realizes. The sun has risen, shining down through the leaves. The flowers are in full bloom and he stops, lungs heaving for air. 

He walks onward, following the footsteps in the mud but not wondering where they came from. From whom they came. From ashes he came, and to ashes he shall return. He wonders why the thought crossed his mind. He doesn’t know. He thinks about bees. Bees and wasps, all buzzing through his mind and clouding his thoughts in their everlasting battle. They form shapes in the eye of his imagination, a living clockwork, then a face and then the buzzing suddenly sounds like maniacal laughter, the sound scraping against his ears.

He’s deep inside the forest now, far past the cliff over the lake. 

There’s a small spot here where the sun breaks through the foliage, a clearing that seems almost untouched by human hands. The grass and the flowers play in the early morning breeze, and he stays here, mind still filled with thoughts of mechanical wasps and bees battling. The click, click, clicking and mechanical buzz plays in the silence of the forest. He hears another buzz, this one not in the theatre of his head, and he stops breathing for a second as he sees the small insect flying from flower to flower. Then, as the bee flies closer, he clenches his fists. 

Just as the horrid little thing flies close to him, he steps on it. Grinds it into the grass. Keeps his foot there for a few seconds, breathing out slowly.

He turns around. Walks back. Away from the clearing, past the cliff.

As he walks, he thinks about smoke. How both bees and wasps alike suffocate when smoking out a hive. He stops.

He stays, frozen in place. He wonders, distant humming cogs of his mind whirring, why he thought about smoke. The smell is there, under the layers of too-sweet nectar.

He looks towards the village, and he’s certain the smell is getting stronger by the second. Christoph tries to walk slowly at first, then cannot help it and runs, runs from whatever horde has infected his mind, laid its eggs there, let its larvae eat away at his thoughts, whether it’s bees or wasps he cannot say, he just needs them _out_. He slows down as he reaches the edge of the forest, heart hammering in his chest, the clockwork of his body drowning out the sound of the swarm. 

The swarm returns soon enough. 

The people of the village are grouped outside their houses, and Christoph is almost choking. The air is heavy with smoke, torches alight in the clear sun of late summer morning. He can see pitchforks. 

And there, on the edge, turning around at the sound of Christoph wheezing, is Christian. He’s carrying a heavy robe in his arms and he glares at Christoph, eyes narrowing. He wonders why. He hasn’t done anything to draw his ire - 

The hollow laughter echoes through his mind again, and he tries not to think about the man currently dying in the town hall. They had all been on edge that evening. That’s all. And anyway, they had put him away, let his body heal itself. That was the way it was done, they would let the Lord excise any of the influences left and He would let the innocent man heal. Not that the body done much of _that_. He sees his face in the back of his mind, the weak rasping sound of his breathing, the way the anger had hummed beneath his skin as he wished for it to stop, remembers how his hands had almost reached out around his neck before Richard, may he rest in peace, had come into the room to watch over Paul - 

He looks Christian directly in the eyes, and Christian speaks softly. 

“There he is.”

His face and voice turn into a snarl.

“The _murderer._ ”

The crowd is still for a moment, then moves as one.

He feels hands grabbing him, tearing at him, someone hits him square in the jaw and he pushes back, teeth gritted and eyes wide as he tries to push himself towards Christian, whose white robes he can faintly see on the edge on the crowd. He tries to yell, but someone manages to elbow him straight in the teeth, followed by a kick to the stomach, and it isn’t long before he’s lying on the ground, the crowd pushing him further into the dirt every passing second. He feels a _crack_ resounding to his teeth and pain shooting up his arm, then another as he feels a hit to the back of his knee, the bluntness of the instrument used only making the sudden sharpness in his leg sting even more.

He faintly thinks of bees surrounding wasps, heating them until the wasps die. There’s another _crack_ , this time in his neck, and the back of his head blossoms with a fire that blinds him. 

⁂

Christian sits by the bed. Hands in his lap, brow furrowed and back stooped, elbows resting on his knees as he looks, unseeing, at the sickly form lying in the bedding. The sickness seems to have hastened in its consumption of his fellow’s body. He wonders, for a brief moment, whether the infection should be this far ahead already. It’s barely been a few days and Paul already looks rotten. It’s as if the maggots have already burrowed into him, leaving him barely conscious as he’s being eaten alive from the inside. There’s something eating away at the back of his own mind as well. An infection of the mind, then, calling to it maggots of guilt and fear and he thinks about how there’s no worms that eat ash and charcoal. 

Is it right to kill a murderer?

Is it right to let a murderer live?

He can feel the heat of a fire starting in his fingertips. 

There’s a small whimper from the bed, and Christian manages to hide the small jolt that runs through his body at the sound. 

Paul is looking at him, eyes glassy and unfocused. He opens his mouth, tries to breathe. It sounds like iron scraping against stone. 

“What- ” He tries to clear his throat, but it doesn’t help at all, only sending him into a fit of coughs that grinds in Christian’s ears as he hacks and tries to get out whatever has filled his lungs. Christian reaches out to support him, but Paul waves him off, lays back on the pillows. It’s as if the phlegm expelled took something with it - his eyes are clearer now, although Christian can’t help but notice the slight tremble going through his whole body. 

“What the _fuck_ was all that noise about?” 

His voice is small, and there’s only a shadow of the lively man once he was left, hanging on desperately on to each syllable. Christian feels a wave of pity at seeing him like this. 

“Oliver... has been missing since this morning. So has- _had_ Christoph.” 

He pauses, thinks back to the dread seeping over him as he had walked down the path. The pair of footsteps leading into the forest and the quiet horror of only one of them heading back. 

He had spotted the bundle of fabric by the edge of the cliff. And thought about Christoph. The empty bed. He hadn’t heard anything from Oliver since the preceding evening. The way Christoph had seemed so eager to- 

He had hurried back, grasping the robes in his arms, and had quietly called the villagers together. He hadn’t needed to argue for his case much. They had all felt uneasy about that Christoph fellow, one wife had explained, and they had all muttered in agreement. It started out quietly. As the minutes passed and no one had returned from the forest, one man had suggested smoke, as to perhaps draw out anyone in the forest. A good idea, everyone had murmured. The torches had been lit. And there, after a while, he had showed up…

“What- What the hell are you talking about? How does that have anything to do with-”

“I found Oliver’s robes by the cliff.”

“Wait, you mean you-” 

Paul suddenly looks at him sharply, a humorless grin etching its way onto his face.

“Oh. _Oh._ ”

He laughs, dry, thin, mirthless and so unlike himself. 

“You found out that Oliver had drowned. So you did it again. Except this time there wasn’t even a _sliver_ of evidence. At least with Theodorus there had been- he had been _holding the fucking knife_ \- but now you just beat a man to death! No proof, no nothing! Great! This is just- Just fucking fantastic! Amazing!” 

Paul’s eyes are wide now, and he half-snarls, half-grins, his sickly features making it all the more off-putting.

“Man, you could’ve at least left some for me! Given _me_ the opportunity for a little revenge, you know! Doesn’t sound like you left him able to defend himself from a half-dead man, hell, you could’ve just dragged him in here and held him up for me to spit in his face! Not that he would’ve fucking _felt_ it! Do you _know_ what it’s like to be beaten halfway through the gates of Paradise? Sure isn’t fun, I can guarantee _that!_ ”

Christian can feel the burning of his hands intensifying, and as Paul spits out the final words he stands up sharply. He can barely even feel the sting of the slap on his palm through the fire.

Paul looks disbelievingly at him, his reddening cheek contrasting with the otherwise yellow pallor over the rest of his face. He slumps back, all energy suddenly drained from him, eyes lidded again. He glares at Christian.

“Awful lot of words for a dying man,” he snarls, trying to sound cold and unaffected but the prickling in his palms has worked its way into the bone and he can feel it starting in his legs now, blazing up his feet and eating at his knees.

He falls down on them, arms sinking into the edge of the mattress, fists clenched and breath hastening. He sees Paul’s expression in the corner of his eye, a millisecond of worry quickly being replaced by the same glare as before. It softens as Christian clenches his jaw, the flame shooting up his forearms and settling in his shoulders, and he almost screams. His heart is beating faster by the second now, feeding the fire better than any wood ever could.

He can barely think through the haze of pain now, an unseen weight settling over the two of them as Christian tries not to whimper. They stay in almost silence, feeling their sins over them, harsh and blunt and heavy. Paul lays a weak hand on his back. He hears a chuckle, a sad, soft one. It barely manages not to devolve into a cough.

“Shit. We really fucked up, huh?”

The fire is edging into his chest now. There’s a horrible coughing coming from Paul. It turns into a weak laugh eventually, and he can barely hear, through the beating of his own heart that’s drowning out everything else, a whisper from Paul.

“Wanna bet on who’s going first?”

⁂

They say there are ghosts in the small village. Rumours have spread since god-knows-when about the priests that had stayed for a week before all dying, one after the other. 

It’s become an excellent attraction for tourists going through Eastern Europe nowadays, and the people living there certainly don’t mind - business is business, as they say. 

Open fire is frowned upon, though.

No naked flame outside.

Only the bare minimum in homes. 

And you should always pray before lighting a match.

After all, there are certain things you don’t want to mess with.

**Author's Note:**

> welp that was a ride  
> till is theodorus cause i was planning on giving them more... "christian" names i guess? then i realized that they're already pretty much all christian names -peers at flake-  
> fun fact! remember when christoph was complaining there at the beginnning? yeah when he stopped it was because he was about to say something about theodorus who, as we all know, is mcfucking dead. fun times  
> thanks for coming along on my shitty ride of killing off monks. i wrote the thing in the summary first and then thought fuck it and so here we are almost 2 months later


End file.
